Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Cairo Tuesday for talks with Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak, a source at Cairo airport said, DPA reported.
The two leaders were due to discuss efforts to revive peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Those talks are currently stalled pending several issues - not least Israeli settlement projects in the occupied territories, and attempts to get Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah to cooperate more closely.
Netanyahu's envoy to the United States on the peace talks, Yitzhak Molcho, was with Netanyahu, Israeli media reported.
Mubarak and Netanyahu were also expected to discuss Egyptian and German-mediated negotiations over a deal that could see as many as 1,000 Palestinian prisoners freed in exchange for Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured near Israel's Gaza border in 2006, Israel radio reported Tuesday.
Negotiations over a prisoner-swap deal have appeared to falter in recent days, after a flurry of activity earlier in the month.
"As of now, there is no deal, and it is not at all clear if there will be a deal," Netanyahu told ministers from his Likud Party Sunday. "We still are not there, and I don't know if we will be."
Israeli Minister of Industry and Trade Binyamin Ben-Eliezer is also accompanying Netanyahu, Israel radio reported, suggesting that Netanyahu and Mubarak might also discuss expanding trade relations.
Under a US-brokered plan, joint Israeli-Egyptian ventures in Egypt get duty-free access to US markets. More than 700 Egyptian companies, mostly in the textile and agricultural sectors, currently participate in the plan, with combined revenue topping 1 billion dollars, according to the Egyptian government.
Israeli prime minister arrives in Cairo for talks
